


Love Less Defined

by paintedrecs



Category: Tiger & Bunny
Genre: And Blue Rose's past crush on Wild Tiger, Barnaby POV, Canon Compliant, Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Family, Family Feels, Father-Daughter Relationship, Future Fic, Growing Up, Hero Kaede, Hinted Antonio/Agnes, Kaede & Karina friendship, Kaede POV, Kotetsu is a very loving but super embarrassing dad, M/M, Married Kotetsu and Barnaby, POV Alternating, Past Maverick Trauma, Past Tomoe/Kotetsu, References to Kaede's past crush on Barnaby, Superheroes, Teacher Kotetsu, embarrassing crushes, these poor girls
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-09
Updated: 2020-03-09
Packaged: 2021-02-28 05:40:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,306
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22998592
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/paintedrecs/pseuds/paintedrecs
Summary: “I thought you liked Barnaby,” Karina said.“I’d like himmoreif I didn’t live with him,” Kaede said.Barnaby wasn’t really the problem; it was her dad. Her affectionate, optimistic, ridiculously heroic,absurdlymessy father, who didn’t have a dishonest bone in his body and who’d somehow never learned that you shouldn’t sayeverythingthat came into your head, especially if you were in front of cameras or at the dinner table with your husband and your seventeen-year-old daughter.Kaede sat up, shoved her face into a sweater that she’d found in one of the afternoon’s amazing clearance sales, and tried very hard not to scream. She wasseventeen years old. She was basically an adult.
Relationships: Barnaby "Bunny" Brooks Jr./Kaburagi T. Kotetsu
Comments: 16
Kudos: 139





	Love Less Defined

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mikkimouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkimouse/gifts).



> This, like many things Tiger & Bunny, came out of a conversation with [mikkimouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkimouse/).
> 
> I really liked the idea of Kaede being bffs with Karina when she's a little older, and also being utterly tormented by having to live with her dad. Sometimes you can love a person very very much and also want a LOT more space away from him and his general Kotetsu-ness and sappily romantic love life. Maybe someday Kaede will be able to properly explain that to her dad.
> 
> M, you told me once you wanted me to write some Tiger & Bunny; I hope you like this one. Consider it thanks for indulging my love of dark-haired bearded men and their angstily intelligent blond boyfriends.

Moving to Stern Bild was, Kaede decided, a mistake.

It’d also been necessary—becoming a hero meant going where the action was, and no amount of arguments could dissuade her from _that_ choice. But living with her _dad_. Well. Kaede loved her father, more than just about anyone else in the world. But she also, currently, very badly wanted to strangle him.

She flopped backwards on her bed, blowing grumpily on the fingernails Karina had just finished painting. “He still treats me like a _child_.”

Karina made an understanding noise; Kaede curled sideways, keeping her wet nails away from her bedspread, to watch as her friend deftly swept polish over her own perfectly-shaped toes. Purple, not blue, in a defiant nod to after-hours independence. And, Kaede said aloud, even uglier than it’d looked in the store.

“Isn’t it?” Karina said cheerfully, brushing on another garishly glittery layer. “I still think the orange was worse, but this one’s growing on me.”

And that was one of the things that made living in the city worth it. Being a hero headed up the list—even if Kaede hadn’t been able to nudge herself to the top of the leaderboard just yet—but spending time with Karina was a close second. Over the years, their friendship had solidified into something that felt a lot more like...well, Kaede didn’t have much experience with siblings, but she imagined this was how it felt to have a sister.

An older sister who’d already hurdled past a lot of the obstacles Kaede was currently running into at full tilt.

“How did you get your parents to stop?”

“Talking to me like I’m still twelve years old?” Karina laughed. She capped the polish and shook her wavy blonde hair out of her face. “I moved out.”

Kaede groaned. “I _wish_. You don’t know what it’s like living here. With _that_ , all the time.” She waved at the open doorway; although they’d turned music on as soon as they’d dropped their shopping bags across her bedroom floor, she could still hear the faint warbling of something operatic drifting up the stairs. Barnaby’s taste, and not something she objected to on its own, but...

“I thought you liked Barnaby,” Karina said.

“I _do_ ,” Kaede said. He and her dad were wonderfully, disgustingly in love, and had been showing it at every opportunity for the last four years. Coming up on five now, actually, and Kaede had been grateful for every single one of them. She’d never seen her dad this happy. He deserved it, and it was _nice_ to have someone who looked at him the way Barnaby did, like they were the only two people in existence in their tiny, love-soaked world...that Kaede had abruptly dropped into eight months earlier.

“I’d like him _more_ if I didn’t live with him,” she said.

Although Barnaby wasn’t really the problem; it was her dad. Her affectionate, optimistic, ridiculously heroic, _absurdly_ messy father, who didn’t have a dishonest bone in his body and who’d somehow never learned that you shouldn’t say _everything_ that came into your head, especially if you were in front of cameras or at the dinner table with your husband and your seventeen-year-old daughter.

Kaede sat up, shoved her face into a sweater that she’d found in one of the afternoon’s amazing clearance sales, and tried very hard not to scream. She was _seventeen years old_. She was basically an adult.

“Okay,” Karina said, in her best big sister voice, which mostly sounded like she was trying not to laugh. “What’re you not telling me?”

“Argh,” Kaede said into the sweater before reluctantly dropping it. “It’s so _embarrassing_ , and it hasn’t even been true for _years._ ”

Karina simply arched an eyebrow, not pushing for more. It was another thing Kaede appreciated about her: she didn’t have many people in her life who actually respected the concept of boundaries. Fortunately, Barnaby was included in that very short list. Her father, on the other hand?

She heaved out a deep sigh and fiddled with the end of her ponytail. “When I was younger, a _lot_ younger, I used to have a crush on Barnaby.” She could feel her face heating but pushed on. “It was when he was a new hero; I was one of the first people he ever rescued, and you know how when you’re a kid, you think things like that _matter_ , somehow. So I collected magazines and...and posters, and my dad got me his signature...”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Karina said. “Barnaby’s always had a _lot_ of fans. It comes with the hero territory.”

It was true; Kaede was already getting fanmail, although Ben sorted through most of it before handing it off to her, with ones marked that he thought were worth replies. Barnaby must’ve received countless bags full of letters over the years. She’d written him one...okay, more like three...that she desperately hoped he’d never read.

She tugged a little harder at her ponytail. “I had some posters on my wall, and a phone charm, things like that. And...a lot more photos and magazine cutouts that I kept stashed away. Which my dad _found_ when he came to visit once.”

“Oh,” Karina said, sounding very much like her attempts to not laugh were failing.

“ _Stop_ ,” Kaede said, swatting at her. “It was horrible. But I thought he’d _forgotten_. And then last night, out of nowhere...Barnaby cooked fish, I think that’s what reminded him—you know how his brain works.”

“ _Ohhh_ ,” Karina said again, in a much different tone. “You had the swimsuit pinups.”

“They were so hot,” Kaede moaned unhappily, drawing her knees up to bury her burning face against them. “And my dad _saw_ them. And then last night he popped right out with, _Hey Bunny, remember that swimsuit photoshoot we did? Did you keep any of the photos? Kaede used to have a whole drawer stuffed full of ‘em..._ ”

Karina was definitely laughing now, not quite silently enough for Kaede to miss it. “What did Barnaby say?”

“Not very much,” she mumbled into her knees. “Something about how he wished he had. Then he made my dad spoon more vegetables onto his plate, and they started arguing, and I came up here before they got to the making up part, ugh.” It was a constant cycle with them: bicker over something nonsensical, then somehow transition into sappy smiles while intensely gazing into each other’s eyes, followed by enthusiastic kissing that she was glad was a still-active part of their lives but never wanted to see or _hear_ again.

“Honestly,” Karina said, “Barnaby was probably just thinking about Tiger’s hot swimsuit photos. I doubt he even...what?”

Kaede had sat bolt upright, staring at her. “You thought my _dad’s_ photos were hot?”

Pink bloomed along Karina’s pale cheeks, rapidly spreading down her throat. “I, uh,” she stuttered.

“Oh my god,” Kaede said.

“It was a long time ago!” Karina protested, her face now so red that Kaede would’ve found it hilarious if she hadn’t been preoccupied by abject horror. “You said it yourself, when you’re younger you sometimes think you’re in love with—”

“Oh my _god_ ,” Kaede said again, hearing how shrill her own voice was getting. “You’re _in love with him_?”

“ _Not anymore_ ,” Karina hissed, her eyes darting to the still-open door. “It was _years_ ago.”

“But he’s _SO OLD_!”

“I _know_ ,” Karina said. She picked at the edge of her thumbnail, chipping off a bit of excess paint and avoiding Kaede’s eyes. “He was just...so nice, and funny without meaning to be, and so much smarter than anyone gave him credit for.”

“And you thought he was _hot_ ,” Kaede said, falling backwards in a sharp burst of laughter when Karina tackled her. Karina’s eyes hadn’t flashed NEXT blue yet, either because she wasn’t ready to fight quite that dirty, or because she didn’t want to test which of them was stronger.

“He’s my _dad_ ,” Kaede managed through a mouthful of her pillow, which Karina was attempting to silence her with.

“So is Barnaby,” Karina retorted, unfairly.

“He wasn’t _then_!”

“So wait,” Karina said, sitting back on her heels and releasing Kaede. “After they started dating, how long did it take you to throw out your posters?”

“I’m not telling you that!” Kaede yelped. “But if you still have the ones of my dad, I’m _burning them_.”

***

Kotetsu tilted his head, frowning at the ceiling, where they could hear a series of increasingly loud thumps, along with high-pitched shrieking that rapidly transitioned into what sounded like near-hysterical laughter. “D’you think we should check on them?”

“No,” Barnaby said, keeping the more adamant _absolutely not_ to himself. Frankly, they were probably much better off not knowing what was going on. Having a daughter was strange territory that both of them were still learning to navigate. Kotetsu had a habit of steering his particular brand of fatherly concern in the most direct route possible, never pausing to consider the ripples that warned of hazards lurking below.

And sometimes he sent them crashing headlong into a jagged reef Barnaby had spotted from miles away.

Distracting Kotetsu was easier than explaining any of that—and far more pleasant for both of them.

Kotetsu made a noise that wasn’t quite a complaint when Barnaby slipped his arms around his waist, drawing his husband’s lean body flush against his. The angle was a little awkward, with their matching heights and Kotetsu’s spiked hair in the way, but he was able to bend his head down enough to touch his lips to Kotetsu’s ear—which made him mutter something inaudible and twitch ticklishly—then the side of his throat, until both of them forgot what they’d been talking about.

“Your noodles are burning, Kotetsu,” he said after a few minutes, reluctantly loosening his grip.

Although they were both facing the stove, Kotetsu must’ve closed his eyes; he made a strangled sound that roughly translated to something like _Garrrgghh_ , while leaping forward to attend to the neglected pot. Barnaby caught him before he tripped headfirst into the burners.

“It’s your fault,” Kotetsu grumbled, poking a spoon into the boiled-dry tangle of noodles. They didn’t seem to be sticking, which meant the meal was still recoverable. “Where’d the recipe go? I lost my place.”

“You’ve actually been following this?” Barnaby asked. He retrieved two crumpled sheets of paper from the front pocket of Kotetsu’s apron. It was an ugly green thing that Kotetsu wore often, claiming Kaede had bought it for him. Barnaby knew better but had learned, as with nearly all aspects of his life with Kotetsu, to appreciate the screen-printed image of Kotetsu’s masked, grinning face, and the ridiculous slogan underneath: _I’m WILD about cooking!!_

How _Kotetsu_ picked up a contract marketing kitchenware, Barnaby would never know.

“...yes,” Kotetsu said, after an unconvincing pause. “Read me the next step, will you Bunny?”

Barnaby complied, leaving one arm wrapped loosely around Kotetsu’s waist. Kotetsu rocked his hips back—just a little, enough to give them both a comforting sense of closeness—and added ingredients, stirring and chopping more or less in time with Barnaby’s instructions. He was more focused like this, his usual restless energy anchored by Barnaby’s voice and touch.

He added significantly more garlic than Barnaby had said, sautéing it with butter and green onions, then scraping the pasta and sauce mixture into the skillet before checking the chicken on the second burner. Steam rose into the air—scented with garlic, brown sugar, soy sauce, and bursts of fresh ginger—and Barnaby’s stomach responded with a low, plaintive grumble.

Kotetsu chuckled. “Just a couple more minutes, Bunny.” He didn’t say _I told you so_ —Kotetsu wasn’t that kind of person—but his slightly smug, pleased tone was unmistakable.

They’d both been experimenting more with recipes since Kaede had moved in. Barnaby had claimed it’d make her feel more at home if they could replicate at least a few of Anju’s recipes, and create some of their own, although he hadn’t tried terribly hard to disguise the real intention: getting Kotetsu onto a more consistently healthy diet.

There’d been some failures on each side, with the most recent ticked up in Barnaby’s column—a unanimously rejected attempt at a lentils and tofu dish that had sounded good in theory but tasted appalling. Judging purely on smell, tonight’s meal would soon be added into their rotation.

“Step six says to add a bag of peas,” Barnaby said. Thinking through their last freezer restock, he amended that to, “Or any mixed vegetables.”

Kotetsu somehow managed to grimace with his entire body; Barnaby could feel the disbelief radiating from him. “Lemme see that,” he demanded, trying to twist around to grab the paper that Barnaby was neatly folding away.

“I thought you’d already read it,” Barnaby said, knowing full well that’d make Kotetsu sputter indignantly. He had to take several quick steps back to head off Kotetsu’s attempt to grab at the collar of his t-shirt—which _wasn’t_ where he’d put the recipe. “I’d thank you to keep your hands to yourself,” he snapped, then watched in frozen dismay as the spoon Kotetsu had clearly forgotten he was still holding swung through the air, spattering a sticky trail of reddish-brown sauce across Barnaby’s chest and all the way up to his glasses.

“ _Kotetsu!”_

“ _What?”_ Kotetsu replied, his dark amber eyes wide with startled innocence, like he had absolutely no idea what he’d done. He was outrageously handsome and infuriating, and sometimes Barnaby couldn’t fathom why he loved him as much as he did.

Barnaby had to pass by Kaede’s room on his way to change his shirt; he hesitated for only the briefest of seconds before stopping in her open doorway, rapping lightly on the frame to announce his presence.

Both girls were sitting on the floor, surrounded by a mountain of shopping bags and new clothes—or so Barnaby assumed, since they were intent on sorting through the items and cutting the tags free. There wasn’t much evidence left of whatever they’d been doing earlier, other than the pillows tossed halfway across the room, and Kaede’s floral bedspread spilling off the mattress. In Kotetsu’s room— _their_ room, a reminder that still surprised him sometimes—that would’ve been an ordinary sight, but Kaede was...quite different from her father in some notable ways. Including the interest in clean, organized surroundings that she thankfully shared with Barnaby.

As if to prove his mental point, Kaede looked up, her gaze zeroing in on his chest, where Kotetsu had attempted to “help” by rubbing the spots away with a wet towel and had only succeeded in making it far worse. Barnaby’s shirt was still sticky with sauce, and now also plastered to his skin in a series of large, uncomfortably damp patches.

He couldn’t hold back an aggrieved sigh; he plucked gingerly at the wet fabric—black, but it could still _stain_ , he’d said in a surge of irritation that’d carried him up the stairs—and explained, “Kotetsu’s cooking tonight.”

For some reason, that made Karina flush and drop her scissors, while Kaede—looking equally embarrassed—jerked her head, her hair whipping from the movement, back to the dress she’d been partway through folding.

“If dinner’s ready, I should probably...” Karina said, starting to cram her half of the clothing pile into an oversized, well-worn tote that both she and Barnaby seemed to simultaneously realize was patterned with Wild Tiger emblems. She froze in place, holding something that looked rather like a lacy bra, then attempted to hide both it and the bag from view.

“You are _staying_ for dinner,” Kaede hissed, with a quick flick of her eyes in Barnaby’s direction.

“I should go change,” Barnaby said, stepping back from the doorway. He nodded at Karina. “But Kaede’s right; Kotetsu’s made more than enough food, and I know he’d love for you to join us.”

He heard a muffled shriek and another thump as he walked down the hall. _Girls_ , he thought, as baffled by them as he’d always been. On her own, Kaede was sharply intelligent and had always shown maturity beyond her years—or Kotetsu’s descriptions of her. And even as a teenager, Blue Rose had been a professional and capable hero who could be relied on to keep her cool.

Barnaby removed his glasses, followed by his shirt, and pinched at the bridge of his nose with an internalized sigh. Kotetsu was having too much of an influence on him.

His point _was_ , he told himself firmly, that together—or with Nathan thrown into the picture—the two of them often turned into a bewildering mixture of giggling and boy talk. It was obviously what’d been happening tonight, and with the added context of the previous night’s dinner and the way Kaede couldn’t meet his eyes, Barnaby had a fairly good idea of where the conversation had gone.

It would blow over soon enough. As long as Kotetsu didn’t dredge up any other long-forgotten and largely unwelcome memories.

“Eh, what an appetite!” Kotetsu exclaimed, practically beaming at the sight of Kaede’s and Karina’s plates, piled high with garlic noodles and two ginger-glazed chicken thighs apiece. He poked Barnaby in the arm, disrupting his efforts to do the same to his. “You must’ve worked up some energy from all that racket earlier. Bunny and I heard you, you know.”

Kaede stabbed her fork into her chicken, so hard Barnaby could’ve sworn he felt it shear right through the bone.

“You could...hear us from down here?” Karina asked, her face draining of all its color.

Unlike Barnaby, who was used to ignoring unwanted attention until it went away, Kotetsu never seemed to have the slightest idea when people found him attractive. It’d taken Barnaby a solid year to convince him that he was interested in pursuing a _different_ level of partnership, before giving up and smashing their mouths together to send an indisputable message.

Or so Barnaby had thought. They’d still had to struggle through several weeks of Kotetsu awkwardly dancing around the subject, talking about friendship and partners who spent a lot of time together and how it was easy for young people to be confused about their feelings, before he’d finally kissed Barnaby back. It was simultaneously one of the worst and best periods of Barnaby’s life, and he wouldn’t have traded a minute of it.

With that in mind, it was no wonder that Kotetsu had simply never noticed that Karina had been deeply infatuated with him for several years. Barnaby couldn’t blame her—Kotetsu had a strange magnetism that it took a while to understand. By the time someone got close enough to piece together all the wonderfully maddening things that made Kotetsu so irresistible, it was already too late. Barnaby had fought it initially, but...he felt the corner of his mouth tug up as Kotetsu’s hand found his knee under the table, squeezing it with absentminded affection.

The warmth and pure contentment that flooded Barnaby’s body in response to the familiar gesture was distracting—enough so that he didn’t stop Kotetsu before he leaned forward and winked at Karina. “I bet you were talking about boys, huh? Kaede won’t ever tell me about any of her boyfriends. I don’t think she believes that I’d be on board with whoever she— _ow_ Bunny, _what now_?”

“We were _talking_ ,” Kaede gritted out, her mouth tight with mortification, “about embarrassing crushes that we used to have _years ago_ , and no one in this room is ever going to mention them again, _Dad_.”

Kotetsu sat back in his chair and poked his fork into his noodles, momentarily quelled. Barnaby’s heart panged, just a little, at his slumped shoulders and dampened enthusiasm. As uncomfortable as it might’ve made everyone else at the table, he never meant anything but the absolute best. Fortunately—for Kotetsu, at least—he always bounced back quickly.

“Embarrassing crushes,” he said before long, his face brightening. Barnaby could feel him gearing up for a story.

Karina exchanged a despairing look with Kaede and pushed her plate to the side, her appetite clearly gone.

“You shouldn’t give up!” Kotetsu continued, warming to the subject and completely forgetting the starting point. “Is he someone we know, eh, Blue Rose? You never know what can happen if you keep trying! It took Bunny and me _years_ to sort things out, and Antonio’s been in love with Agn— _OW_ ,” he complained when Barnaby kicked him again under the table.

“You’re forgetting _how_ we got together,” Barnaby pointed out, and Kotetsu rubbed sheepishly at the back of his neck.

“Well...” he said, not even attempting to come up with a defense.

Left to his own devices, Barnaby was convinced Kotetsu would’ve spent the next ten years not realizing that they were practically _in_ a relationship already, missing only the explicitly stated words and the physical components. Which had been a long-awaited and extremely gratifying bonus that Barnaby mentally dwelled on for a little too long, again missing his chance to stop Kotetsu from plunging into his next attempt at encouragement.

Kotetsu _did_ pick up hints, if they were delivered strongly enough. His thoughts had taken a more introspective turn with the last jostling; he was smiling at Kaede now, instead of Karina, who still looked approximately five seconds away from encasing them all in ice and making one of her patented Cutie Escapes.

“You shouldn’t be embarrassed about liking someone,” Kotetsu said, with that gentle, kind-eyed understanding that had first made Barnaby’s intensely negative—and entirely incorrect—impression of him begin to shift. “Caring about another person’s a good thing! And at your age it’s normal to like lots of different people. We’ve all been through it. When I was young like you two girls, _I_ liked...well...”

He stopped, rubbing at the back of his head again, looking embarrassed by his inability to follow through on his own well-intentioned advice.

“I guess I only ever really liked your mom,” he admitted, with a smile that still, after all these years, held a sorrowful edge. Under the table, his hand grasped for Barnaby’s, until Barnaby caught and held it. “And then Bunny,” he said, gripping him tightly.

Kaede’s deeply exasperated expression softened; with her dark hair, expressive eyes, and stubborn set to her jaw, she’d been looking increasingly like her father as she grew. Barnaby wasn’t sure how much she’d welcome that comparison, but it was one of the strongest compliments he could give. Most importantly, she’d inherited much of Kotetsu’s generous heart—and flashes of a steely, highly practical determination that must’ve come from Tomoe.

“I don’t like anyone _now_ , Dad,” she said, almost sounding reluctant to burst his bubble. “I’m too busy being a hero.”

“Well when you do!” Kotetsu insisted, too determined to turn back. Ever since their second—and this time permanent—retirement from Hero TV, he’d been working harder than he needed to at being what he thought was a properly supportive dad. Barnaby had found him poking at his computer late at night on several occasions, covering for it by claiming he was checking Wild Tiger’s ancient fan page, or submitting evaluations for Hero Academy students. He was too slow at closing out tabs; Barnaby had seen the rows of parenting articles.

 _How to talk to your daughter about her changing body_ , for one. Barnaby had chosen not to ask, although even he knew it was rather too late on that count. The important part was that Kotetsu was trying his best to make up for years of sidelining Kaede for the people of Stern Bild.

Unfortunately, it usually resulted in him putting his foot in his mouth in as many ways as humanly possible.

“Anything I don’t know, you can ask Bunny about,” Kotetsu was saying now, brightly oblivious to how that suggestion made Karina choke on the mouthful of noodles she’d finally resumed eating. “He knows what it’s like to have all the girls chasing after him.”

Barnaby pinched the bridge of his nose. “Kotetsu.”

That just pulled Kotetsu’s attention back to him. Kotetsu was grinning, his eyes sparkling, as his voice took on a teasingly flirtatious tone. It was unfair; he’d learned that Barnaby was helpless when Kotetsu looked at him like that.

“Aw c’mon Bunny,” he wheedled. “Who were your Hero Academy crushes? You must’ve had at least a half dozen.”

It was an awkward conversation to have in front of other people, particularly when they’d already discussed this within a few months of transitioning their relationship into the physical realm. Barnaby replied, stiffly, “You know perfectly well there hasn’t been anyone else, Kotetsu.”

“Well I know _that_ ,” Kotetsu said; he had the decency to look abashed at having inadvertently tugged the conversation in that direction. It’d taken years—and innumerable reprimands from both Barnaby and Agnes—for him to remember that when they were in their hero suits, and thus in the public eye, mentioning details of their personal lives was off-limits. Adjusting to the unfamiliarity of having someone other than the two of them in their home had been similarly rocky; Kotetsu wasn’t used to censoring himself.

And if he was being perfectly honest, Barnaby missed some of their old freedom: uninhibited conversations, and the ability to touch Kotetsu whenever and however he wanted once they’d crossed the threshold into their personal domain.

Barnaby loved Kaede. He’d welcomed her without hesitation—although with a little less overflowing excitement than Kotetsu—when she’d joined Hero TV and announced she was relocating to the city. He didn’t _mind_ having her there...but sometimes, like now, he couldn’t help wishing that he and Kotetsu could be alone.

Kotetsu was leaning over to close the distance between them, all his scattered energy drawing into a much tighter, heavier focus that never failed to make Barnaby dizzy with longing. Their years of intimacy made it easier for Kotetsu to read between the lines—when he was paying close enough attention. Barnaby hadn’t simply been referring to a lack of _sexual_ experience before he’d met Kotetsu. He’d felt passing attraction for various men—mild and relegated to recognition that he apparently had a certain physical type—but he’d never felt the slightest desire to act on it, or to invest emotionally. Until Kotetsu.

“You mean...” Kotetsu said in a low, awed voice, finally gathering the full context behind his words. “ _Bunny_.”

Barnaby barely noticed the girls grabbing their plates and, with appalled scrapes of their chairs, fleeing back upstairs. He registered the distant, probably intentionally loud, slam of a door but couldn’t bring himself to care about anything other than the feel of Kotetsu’s capable fingers in his hair—the confident touch of Kotetsu’s tongue against his.

***

“I can’t do this,” Kaede said. She punched her straw into her boba, watching the tapioca pearls bounce in startled response. Before they could settle, she stirred the tea again, needing to exert control over _something_ in her disastrous life.

Karina looked up from her menu. “Do you want to go somewhere else? I don’t mind.”

“No,” Kaede sighed. They were trying out a new lunch spot, halfway between Apollon Media and Titan Industry, and it wasn’t the _food_ that was the problem. She tilted her wrist, half-wishing for the distraction of her PDA signaling an emergency. Instead, her phone lit up: another message from her dad, who had somehow accidentally texted her instead of Barnaby and was now attempting to cover up the mistake with a series of explanations that weren’t improving the situation in the slightest.

She turned her phone facedown and opened her own menu, trying to focus on the options. Chicken. Tofu. Beef. Steamed rice. _Ugh_ , she thought, wishing she had no idea what her dad and Barnaby got up to when she wasn’t around.

“Love is gross,” she told Karina once they’d ordered.

Karina laughed. “I know what you mean. Did I tell you Jannika’s moving out?”

“No!” Kaede said. “When?” They’d been roommates for the past two years; Kaede hadn’t spent a lot of time with her, but it was strange to think of such an established section of Karina’s life emptying.

“The end of the month. Her boyfriend proposed to her a couple weeks ago. I’m not sure if she loves _him_ or his flat in the Gold Stage.” Karina rolled her eyes and fished the lemon slice out of her iced tea, setting it on a napkin before delicately wiping her fingers dry. “Not that I blame her: it’s twice as big as ours, and everything’s brand new. He has a doorman, and there’s a handyman who’s on call just for that building. I can’t even get our landlord to fix the drip in our shower.”

“It’d be hard to say no to that,” Kaede agreed. Although realistically, she’d take _any_ opportunity to get out of her dad’s house, leaky faucet and all.

When their food came, she asked, casually, if Karina had already lined up a new roommate.

Karina shook her head. “I’ve talked to a few girls. I wish...” She sighed, swirling her chopsticks absently in her shallow soy sauce dish. “Pao-Lin lives alone. Maybe I should try that. It’s exhausting living with someone I have to hide so much of my life from.”

The difference was that Pao-Lin _liked_ her own space. Karina thrived on contact with other people. She’d started out with three roommates, crammed into a tiny apartment all of them could still barely afford, a couple months after she’d turned nineteen. Those girls had all peeled away over time—jobs, schools, and other dreams pulling them out of Stern Bild—while Karina stayed, hooked by Hero TV and her skyrocketing musical career. She still wistfully talked about that time in her life, like she missed sharing a mildewed bathroom and a malfunctioning fridge with three perpetually broke teenagers.

“Couldn’t you tell Jannika?” Kaede asked, surprised that Karina had kept up the facade with someone she’d known so long.

Heroes were supposed to have secret identities, but that didn’t usually apply to immediate family members or anyone within a certain circle of trust. And anyway, the rules weren’t as strict anymore; Barnaby had always gone by his real name, and everyone knew who her dad was now. Much to his dismay—he still insisted on wearing a mask to any interviews or public appearances, stubbornly correcting anyone who didn’t call him _Wild Tiger_ , although he’d given up on the mask after his first month teaching at Hero Academy.

 _It itches_ , he’d grumbled, not used to having to wear it for a full day of classes. He still refused to let anyone call him Kotetsu in those settings—other than Barnaby, who seemed physically unable to stop.

Karina shook her head. “We weren’t really that close. And...I don’t always want to be Blue Rose. If I tell people that’s who I am, they treat me differently. Jannika would’ve asked why I’m only living in the Silver Stage—and probably would’ve tried to get us to move—and then I would’ve wondered if she was just friends with me for my name and my money.”

It was something Kaede’s dad had, much less effectively and succinctly, tried to explain about the hero lifestyle when she’d announced her intentions to join the upcoming season of Hero TV. Agnes Joubert had made her a generous offer, contingent on her father’s acceptance, which he’d initially been reluctant to give. Kaede had dug her heels in, assuming he was still infantilizing her despite the progress they’d made in their relationship, but with nearly a year of cameras, criminals, and magazine spreads under her belt, she was beginning to understand some of his hesitation.

She _loved_ being a hero. Experiencing it firsthand helped her to understand, too, why her dad had made the choices he did when she was little. Some things were bigger than family or your personal life. It could be isolating, though; she knew she was lucky to have her dad, Barnaby, Karina, and the rest of the support system that her...well, _both_ her dads had established during their time as Stern Bild’s most visible duo. Everyone knew and loved Wild Tiger and Barnaby Brooks, Jr., and that stretched beyond her fellow heroes: the entire _city_ was eager to support Tiger’s daughter, Stern Bild’s newest hero.

Kaede had a hero suit and a hero name, but Agnes’s entire marketing campaign had centered around her true identity. On her worse days, she wondered if she would’ve made it on TV at all if she’d been anyone else.

“What’s it like?” she asked. “Being Karina and Blue Rose and...separating those.”

“Blue Rose is what I do,” Karina said, as though it was that simple. “Karina’s who I am. At least, that’s how it is for me. I know Tiger never saw it that way.”

He wouldn’t, Kaede thought, suddenly flooded with fondness for her dad, who’d spent years toiling through near-obscurity, not bothering with money or fame, because all he’d ever cared about was helping people. Her dad had always been her hero. She should tell him that more often.

She turned her phone over to check the time and grimaced at the clog of notifications.

“You’re popular today,” Karina observed, finishing off the last cube of tofu, then draining her iced tea. “ _Do_ you have a boyfriend you’re not telling me about?”

“Ew,” Kaede said reflexively, more in response to the source of that question than the concept itself. “It’s my dad. I love him but I cannot _stand_ living with him. Do you know he’s spent a solid month arguing with Barnaby over dishwashers? _Dishwashers_. One minute they’re all over each other, which, _ew_. And then the next, my dad’s waving a catalogue around—an actual, physical catalogue full of dishwashers, I didn’t even know they made more than one kind—and talking about installment plans, and Barnaby’s sniping at him about how he never does any cleaning _anyway_ and how would a machine change that, and then somehow I look away for two seconds and they’re making out again. It’s horrible.”

“Lunch is my treat; you’ve suffered enough,” Karina said, laughing again at Kaede’s pain. “I thought you said they’d been getting better?”

“They try,” Kaede allowed. “I think they honestly just forget I’m around half the time. They’re like newlyweds. _Worse_ than newlyweds, and they’ve been married for _three years_. Have they always been like this?”

“Well, not _kissing_. But...yeah, for the most part. I think I was one of the last to realize what was actually going on between them.”

“Because,” Kaede said gleefully, “you were—”

“If you finish that sentence, you’re paying for lunch _and_ I’m not driving you home after,” Karina warned.

***

Barnaby’s phone chimed three times before it finally started ringing. He sighed, set aside his book, and looked down at the goofy, cross-eyed face on his screen. Kotetsu had spent a good four months changing Barnaby’s contact photos every time he left his phone unlocked, so he’d finally given up on switching them back to the defaults. It wasn’t a battle he’d particularly minded losing.

He did his best to pretend he wasn’t mirroring Kotetsu’s smile when he clicked the button to accept the call. It was infectious; he couldn’t help it.

“Bunny!!” Kotetsu exclaimed. He sounded out of breath and a little distant, like he wasn’t actually holding his phone to his face.

“Kotetsu,” Barnaby responded flatly, trying hard to remember that he was still angry.

“I’m—ow, dammit,” Kotetsu muttered, his voice fading out even more; there was a metallic clang and what sounded like a door being violently slammed open, then smacking back into human limbs.

“Where _are_ you?”

“Er,” Kotetsu said. “In the stairwell. On the...fifth? Sixth floor. D’you think you can come help me with the rest, Bunny? All these damn doors open inward.”

“If you’re on the stairs, why are you—” Barnaby sighed and put his glasses on, wanting to ask a dozen questions but knowing the answers to any of them would be some convoluted explanation that only made sense to Kotetsu.

“I was gonna try the elevator again,” Kotetsu said, sounding tired enough that Barnaby sped up his movements, lacing his boots and grabbing his keys before Kotetsu had finished his next sentence. “One’s still broken, y’know, and the other was so crowded that I felt bad...”

 _Infuriating_ , Barnaby thought, reaching the elevator in a few quick strides and pushing the button to call it to their floor. He was surprised Kotetsu hadn’t simply left the new dishwasher in the lobby to help their neighbors carry up their groceries.

Kotetsu was waiting for him on the sixth floor landing; he’d managed to prop the door open with the appliance box and was sitting on top of it, idly jiggling his knee in time with his thoughts. His face broke into a smile when he saw Barnaby, and he stopped rubbing his left bicep—so abruptly that Barnaby immediately took hold of Kotetsu’s arm when he was close enough.

Any damage he’d done was too fresh to have bruised yet; Barnaby pushed up Kotetsu’s shirt sleeve anyway, running his fingers over the unbroken skin to check for tender areas.

“Bunnyyy,” Kotetsu said, with a teasing lift at the end of his name. “Have you been at the rosé wine already? Usually you wait until we’re—augh,” he said as Barnaby pulled him to his feet, then let go of his arm.

“I don’t understand why you refused to pay for delivery,” Barnaby said, picking up the argument where they’d left it in the store an hour earlier. “We can afford it.”

Kotetsu’s expressive mouth hardened, just enough for Barnaby to recognize that trudging up six flights of stairs with a box half his height—and probably close to his weight—hadn’t done anything to change his mind. For whatever reason—sensitivity over finances, lingering discomfort with his lighter contribution to their shared bank accounts, or simply the idea of saving time by carrying it out of the store himself—Kotetsu’s stubborn self-reliance had kicked in, too strongly for any of Barnaby’s arguments to dislodge it. All they could do now was move forward.

Barnaby lifted one corner of the box, testing whether his estimation had been correct. A shade lighter than Kotetsu, especially post-retirement, but it’d fit less easily in his arms. He fixed Kotetsu with a suspicious look. How had he carried it that far on his own? “Kotetsu, did you activate your powers for a _dishwasher_?”

“No!” he exclaimed, sounding deeply offended that Barnaby would even suggest such a thing.

It was true, Kotetsu had gotten much better at reining in his impulsivity over the years, especially once his powers had dipped to the one minute mark, then below, but...

Retirement hadn’t been an easy choice. They’d done it before; it hadn’t stuck, and Barnaby knew there was a part of Kotetsu that would always ache to be out there in the city, swinging off buildings and fighting for justice. _Saving_ people. With Kaede in on the action now, a tiny Copycat hero putting herself in harm’s way every day, Barnaby could feel Kotetsu chafing at his inability to help.

He’d never said anything about it—which, with Kotetsu, meant very little about what he was actually feeling.

“Kotetsu,” Barnaby said, much softer now that he was forgetting why they’d been fighting in the first place. What he _did_ know was that Kotetsu had started looking up kitchen appliances a few months after Kaede had moved in. He’d brought home a toaster oven when Kaede had commented on how long it took the traditional oven to preheat—and now that Barnaby was thinking back, he could pinpoint the origin of this objectionable purchase to the night Kaede had yelled at her dad for constantly leaving dishes piled in the sink.

She’d apologized after, giving him a quick side hug while he scrubbed at an egg-caked skillet, and told him she’d just been exhausted from a long day at work. The next afternoon, Barnaby had found Kotetsu poring through a kitchenware catalogue—slipped inside the covers of an old hero magazine, like Barnaby couldn’t clearly see the appliance photos over his shoulder.

“Kotetsu, why didn’t you just tell me why you wanted to buy it?” He didn’t need to say anything more; Kotetsu’s gaze shifted to the side, confirming that Barnaby had finally put the pieces together in the correct order.

He rocked uncomfortably on the balls of his feet, shoving his hands into his pockets until his shoulders hunched around his ears. “I don’t think she likes it here, Bunny,” he said.

I don’t think she likes _me_ was what he meant.

Barnaby knew he was wrong, but Kotetsu’s jaw had taken on a rigid line, which meant that anything he tried to say would probably spin into an argument—drawn from deeply hurt feelings and Kotetsu’s resistance to any attempts to topple the protective walls he’d built around them.

Instead, Barnaby stepped close enough to set his hands on either side of Kotetsu’s narrow waist, ducking the bare two inches of their height difference to rest his forehead against Kotetsu’s. It took a moment; Barnaby could feel the tension slowly leaching out of him, until Kotetsu gave a slight shudder and moved his hands from his pockets to a white-knuckled grip on the back on Barnaby’s shirt.

“My power barely lasts thirty seconds now,” he said, the words low but still fully audible. “I wouldn’t have even made it up the first flight.” 

***

It took three hours of attempted dishwasher assembly for Kotetsu to admit that he had no idea what he was doing.

Barnaby had asked, once they’d wrangled the thing into their kitchen, if Kotetsu knew how to hook it up to their sink. He was doing his best not to swing them back into territory they were well past now—the delivery fee had included installation, which was increasingly seeming like a bargain—but Kotetsu had tapped out a cheery salute and replied that he’d figure it out.

In the meantime, Barnaby busied himself with his own work. He went for a run to clear his head, took a shower, and then sat down with a hefty stack of paperwork that he’d been putting off for a few days. Perhaps the biggest surprise after Maverick’s death had been Barnaby’s status in his estate plan. He’d said, of course, that he’d intended anything he had to go to Barnaby—weren’t they the closest thing to family either of them had left, after all?—but Barnaby had assumed it was merely another lie in his seemingly endless list.

Maybe he’d had to keep this lie on paper to sell the rest of his stories. Maybe he’d intended to change it down the line, once having a pet hero in his pocket was no longer useful to him. Barnaby didn’t know, and he didn’t particularly like dwelling on it.

He had enough of his parents’ money, and his own, to keep both himself and Kotetsu comfortable—for the remainder of their lives, if he was careful with it and invested wisely. The rest, he hadn’t touched in well over a year after his inheritance had come through. A part of him had wanted to burn it. To liquidate the assets, piling Maverick’s filth in an empty field far outside of the city limits and watching it all scorch down to bare earth, as Maverick had done to his entire life.

 _Or you could donate it_ , Kotetsu had said gently, pulling Barnaby back from the irrational brink, as he always had. _The money itself isn’t bad, Bunny. You could do something with it that would help people._

He’d been trying. Perhaps unsurprisingly, with the early loss of his parents and the frequent memory wipes by the guardian who was ostensibly teaching him about the business world, Barnaby’s grasp on the finer details of money management was sometimes tenuous. He’d started with the orphanage he’d grown up in, once he’d discovered that it existed and that he’d been raised by the nuns there, rather than by his loving pseudo-uncle.

Renovations were the first step, and he’d worked with the nuns and an array of financial advisors to set up funds that would ensure continued support for the children and—trickier and more expensive—ways to expand adoption opportunities so that more of them could transition into families.

Barnaby went to the orphanage nearly every Sunday—sometimes with Kotetsu, often without—to spend time with the children: reading to them, bringing toys, and listening to their quietly hopeful dreams. He couldn’t give each of them everything they wanted, but he’d been doing his best.

There were other facilities across Stern Build, and beyond the city; Maverick’s money couldn’t stretch to them all, so Barnaby had been forced to sift through piles of petitions and proposals that made his head swim and his heart ache.

 _It’s okay_ , Kotetsu had soothed a few months after they’d finally started dating, then again the following year, then the next, as Barnaby struggled with the overwhelming tide of _need_ that had escaped his notice when he’d been fixated on Ouroboros and revenge.

_You can’t fix everything. But look at the lives you’ve changed already. All these names and faces, kids whose lives are better because you cared about them. Isn’t that enough to make it worth it?_

With Kotetsu’s voice ringing in his ears, it took a while for Barnaby to place the real one filtering from the kitchen, several rooms away from his office. A plaintive repetition of “ _Bunnyyy......._ ” that meant Kotetsu had run into difficulties that had overcome even his obstinacy.

Barnaby was tempted to continue ignoring him. Kotetsu had gotten himself into this mess, and he was capable of sorting it out on his own without tangling anyone else up in it. And, Barnaby sighed, sorting his papers into neat stacks he could return to later, he loved Kotetsu more than he’d ever believed was possible. How hard could it be to help him finish off the last few steps?

“Did you even _open_ the manual?” Barnaby asked, wondering how he’d gotten to the point where someone this exasperating could simultaneously give him a headache and a swooping sensation in his stomach.

Kotetsu, sprawled on the floor in the midst of tools and scattered parts that Barnaby was certain were supposed to be _inside_ the dishwasher, grinned contritely up at him. His dark hair was flatter than usual, and he’d stripped down to a sleeveless undershirt that was damp in places, either from exertion or losing battles with the pipes under the sink. Barnaby was tempted to suggest that he take that off, too, to save on the need for laundry.

Their washing machine had started rattling a bit over the last few weeks, he suddenly remembered in alarm, and mentally added that to his list of things to handle _without_ Kotetsu’s well-meaning assistance.

“I tried,” Kotetsu said, his eyes bright with sincerity. “It’s twenty-two pages long. I looked at some of the pictures.”

“And then just decided to take everything apart?” Barnaby asked. He picked up the discarded manual, which was indeed far longer and more complicated than he would’ve expected. “Give me five minutes,” he said, after scanning the first page, with the rows of giant _DANGER_ signs that Kotetsu had very likely skipped straight past. “And don’t touch anything else until I tell you.”

“Yes, Bunny,” Kotetsu said, as meekly as he ever managed to be.

To his credit, he did sit more or less quietly until Barnaby had finished reading the instructions, flipped back through again to make sure he’d understood all the steps correctly, then taken a quick inventory to determine whether Kotetsu had actually managed to destroy anything.

“You’re going to do everything exactly as I tell you to, when I tell you to,” Barnaby instructed him, his voice clipped by lingering panic over some of the warnings he was absolutely certain Kotetsu hadn’t heeded. “Do you understand me, Kotetsu?”

“Yes, Bunny,” Kotetsu repeated, in a significantly different tone that Barnaby was too preoccupied to spend time deciphering. He kept them at a steady clip, firmly walking Kotetsu through the reassembly, then moving into the initial drilling and wiring until they’d gotten past the most hazardous sections. 

Kotetsu had started to shift uncomfortably at some point, working quietly and without any seeming physical strain, but with a reddened tint spreading under his tan skin. It got more pronounced after they’d flushed the water line and begun routing the drain hose.

“Slide the nut and ferrule onto the tubing— _slowly_ , Kotetsu, don’t force it,” Barnaby said, then frowned at Kotetsu, who’d made a muffled noise in response—a grunt, almost, that didn’t correspond with any of his movements.

Maybe he was tired; Barnaby had barely given Kotetsu a chance to pause for breath through—he checked—twelve pages of heavily detailed instructions. The effort was beginning to wear on him, too; his voice was getting gruffer as he read, grating over some of the words.

“Do you need to take a break?” he asked, relenting a little now that he was no longer concerned Kotetsu would electrocute himself. They could probably both use a drink—water, not alcohol, not until after they’d finished.

Kotetsu set down his tools and stood, somewhat stiffly, reaching down to not-so-subtly adjust what Barnaby suddenly realized was a sizable bulge in the front of his trousers.

Barnaby gave him a flat, wordless look, and Kotetsu flushed darker.

“I can’t help it!” he protested.

Now that Barnaby was paying attention to more than Kotetsu’s hands and a series of heavily detailed diagrams, he could see the sheen of sweat along Kotetsu’s throat and collarbones, his eyes dilated to thin amber rings. It wasn’t entirely new information—they’d been together long enough for both of them to discover what they enjoyed in bed—but this context was different, and apparently quite effective for Kotetsu.

“Would you like me to tell you what to do next, Kotetsu?” Barnaby asked, lowering his voice and deliberately unbuckling his belt, watching Kotetsu’s eyes track the movement as he let the coiled leather fall to the ground.

Kotetsu’s undershirt soon followed, his biceps flexing appealingly as he slowly revealed his chiseled abs, then his firmly muscled chest and dusky nipples, with a focused sensuality that Barnaby never could’ve imagined from him when they’d first met. It’d taken longer than it should have to recognize that Kotetsu was far more attractive than he usually let people notice. He deliberately deflected attention, making jokes at his own expense and always chasing noisily after a dozen different thoughts at once, leaving no room to see that there was an incredibly thoughtful, perceptive, breathtakingly handsome man underneath all the bluster.

He did manage to get the shirt tangled in his hair, momentarily; when he popped free with a vehement curse, Barnaby bit back his fond smile and directed him to the zipper of his pants, which was straining visibly. Kotetsu turned to it with smoldering intensity, putting his entire being into the task, as he did with every aspect of his life.

With the exception, possibly, of paperwork.

He was extraordinary, Barnaby thought, waiting until Kotetsu was fully undressed before allowing himself to touch. Kotetsu kissed the way he did everything else—with initially messy enthusiasm that eventually calmed into surprisingly deft strokes of his tongue and skilful hands sliding up the back of Barnaby’s shirt.

“Did I say you could do that yet,” Barnaby murmured against Kotetsu’s mouth, heady with the pleasure of his husband’s body against his. He freed himself from Kotetsu’s embrace; Kotetsu grumbled a bit in response, then hissed at the sudden rush of cold air against his bare skin as Barnaby lifted him into his arms in a smooth, familiar motion.

“Can I kiss you, Bunny?” Kotetsu asked, with a playful roughness in his voice, before leaning in to do it anyway, his arms wrapping securely around Barnaby’s shoulders.

It made carrying Kotetsu up the stairs slightly more difficult, but Barnaby managed, taking one slow step at a time, forgetting everything but the man he constantly found himself aching to hold.

***

“I can’t _believe_ them,” Kaede raged, entirely to herself, since she was alone in a kitchen with a half-assembled dishwasher and what looked like _all_ of her dad’s clothes.

She nearly stomped right out of the flat, the building, the entirety of Stern Bild itself, because nothing was worth having to deal with this day after day. Couldn’t they control themselves for _one afternoon_? And in a _public space_ , where...she set her hands on her hips, frowning again at the dishwasher. That hadn’t been there when she’d left that morning. At least that was one argument she could stop cranking up her music to cover.

Giving up on the idea of fleeing the city just yet, she set her things by the couch and lifted the clear lid of her dad’s ancient record player, replacing Barnaby’s vinyls with a stack that had much more engaging beats—and enough heavy bass to drown out whatever she refused to acknowledge was happening upstairs.

Someone—Barnaby, most likely—had left the dishwasher manual on the counter, with a Hero TV bookmark neatly slid inside to indicate how far they’d gotten. Kaede flipped it open and grabbed a cookie from the Wild Tiger jar sitting next to it.

“Waste disposer, ugh,” she said, wrinkling her nose and flipping ahead to see how much of the process was left. It didn’t look all that bad. Hammer, screwdriver, needle-nose pliers: all within easy reach. She poured herself a glass of milk and ate two more cookies while she read carefully through the rest. There was a bold-type warning about an excessive weight hazard, noting that two or more people were required to move the dishwasher into the cabinet opening, then anchor it properly.

Kaede snorted and brushed her crumbs into the sink. Fortunately, the last person she’d touched was Rock Bison, who no longer went by that name but still periodically stopped by Hero TV to say hi to everyone—mostly Agnes, as far as she could tell. He’d patted her on the head and told her she was looking taller.

“Stronger, too,” she said, fixing her ponytail and getting to work.

***

Even though it took longer than it’d looked on paper, Kaede was still alone in the kitchen by the time she’d finished hooking the dishwasher up, then starting a test run with her dishes and the pile her dad had left sitting out. She or Barnaby usually ended up washing them for him, unless they were trying to prove a point; in this case, Barnaby probably knew the appliance was on its way and had opted to wait.

Much of Kaede’s irritation had subsided over the last hour, drained by the physical effort and mental focus it’d taken to ensure she wasn’t making a mistake that would flood the flat or, probably worse, cause a fire. The record player was idling, the room filling instead with the steady slosh of a machine she was immensely proud of herself for putting together. She pulled her hair loose from its tie, kicked off her shoes, and flopped onto the couch—then jolted back upright, reaching between the cushions to retrieve two remotes, a magazine, and a half-eaten bag of potato chips.

It wasn’t the _worst_ assortment of things she’d found in there, but then again, her dad’s underwear had been in plain view on the kitchen floor this time, so her mental scoreboard needed some revising.

Living with her dad wasn’t all bad, but ever since her lunch with Karina, Kaede hadn’t been able to stop thinking about other options. It only took five more minutes for her to drape herself over the edge of the couch, rummaging in her bag for her phone.

“Karina,” she said, nervous but determined. “You know how we talked about Jannika last week? Yeah. No, everything’s fine here. I’m just wondering...have you decided on a new roommate yet?”

***

It was close to sunset by the time her dad finally trailed downstairs, yawning and looking very much like he’d just rolled out of bed. His hair was sticking out in more directions than Kaede could count; he was barefoot, wearing Barnaby Brooks, Jr. pajama pants and no shirt.

“Bunny?” he called groggily.

Kaede fixed him with a glare, and his steps faltered, his expression flickering from surprise to something oddly like sorrow, before shifting back into his usual cheery smile.

“Kaede!” he said. “For a second there you looked just like...” He visibly shook away the thought and craned his neck to peer around her, like she might be blocking his view of his six foot one husband. “Have you seen Bunny? I thought he’d be down here. We were—”

“I don’t want to know,” Kaede said, coldly. “Next time, could you _not_ leave your clothes in the kitchen?”

Her dad flushed. “We were going to come back, after. I guess I fell asleep.” He muttered something under his breath about _stamina_ that she had no desire to reflect on further, then made his way to the fridge to fill a glass of water.

“Huh,” he said after a bit, sounding disappointed. “He finished it without me.”

“If you mean the dishwasher,” Kaede said, copying over a formula from her chemistry textbook, “I did that. You left it sitting out in the middle of the floor with wires and tubes everywhere, Dad, it was a hazard.”

Foolishly assuming that was the end of it, Kaede made a strangled noise of surprise when her dad tried to octopus-arm his way around her chair, saying something horrifically embarrassing about how proud he was of his smart little girl while repeatedly attempting to kiss the top of her head.

“Augh, Dad, stop!” she yelped, pushing his scruffy face away from hers.

He sighed, let go, and moved to a chair on the opposite side of the dining table, dropping his chin into his hand with a dejected huff.

Kaede absolutely refused to feel any guilt; he should _know_ by now that she wasn’t as touchy-feely as he was. Really, no one was: her dad was like a puppy sometimes, bumbling around with clumsy enthusiasm and trying to put everything in his mouth.

Which meant that he didn’t stay still for long; he started touching the books she’d spread across the table, flipping absently through the one closest to him. “Homework?”

“Yeah,” she said, finishing off the notes from her lab assignment and shutting that book to move on to the next. It was tricky, completing her final year of school while working nearly full-time as a hero—currently the youngest in the First League. She’d argued vehemently—with her grandmother, mostly, since her dad was more of a pushover—that Pao-Lin and Karina had _both_ managed to balance education with Hero TV and that there was no reason for her to put off her career for another season. It was already a compromise; she’d been ready since she was fifteen.

Unfortunately, Dragon Kid and Blue Rose hadn’t been hit quite as hard by the media frenzy during their debuts. There were a number of factors: Kaede’s birthday coinciding with the start of the Hero TV season, both her dads being the darlings of the hero world, curiosity about her unusual powers, and Agnes’s determination to cash in on every last second of her rising popularity.

Juggling the relocation, a barrage of magazine and radio and television interviews, photoshoots, advertising offers, the hero work itself, and her schoolwork...it’d been a lot, more than Kaede had naively anticipated. She’d fallen a little behind, and had been using summer school and private tutoring to close out her last few requirements.

“D’you need help?” her dad asked, hopefully, then pouted— _actually pouted_ —when she turned him down.

“Dad,” she said eventually, shutting her books. “There’s something I need to talk to you about.”

His face brightened, probably in expectation that she’d changed her mind about asking him for advice, then swiftly, horribly, collapsed into heartbreak as she explained that she’d be moving in with Karina at the end of the following month.

“After my birthday,” she said. Eighteen didn’t feel a lot different—why did a specific age matter, when she already had the money and the ability to take care of herself—but it did open up new possibilities. “That way I’ll be able to get on the lease. Karina said she doesn’t mind holding the room open for me, but I might try to pay the extra month’s rent anyway, so I can start moving some of my things over. Dad, are you...it’s _fine_ , Dad, I’m only moving ten minutes away, I’ll still see you all the time.”

Her dad wiped at his eyes, trying to pretend that he wasn’t crying. Kaede knew he wasn’t working any intentional guilt angles; he was wholly sincere when he asked, quietly, “Did I do something wrong?”

“Argh,” she said, and got up to hug him; he slumped sideways into her, not moving from his chair or attempting to turn it into one of his aggressive cuddle-fests. She petted his ridiculous hair, trying to smooth it out a little bit. “I’m grown up, that’s all,” she said. “I need my own space. And I think you and Barnaby do, too.”

“You’ll visit?” he asked, still a little wetly but with a clear attempt to control his emotions before they leaked all over her.

“All the time,” she promised. “Barnaby’s cooking’s almost getting as good as Grandma’s. But we’re going to _schedule_ things, okay? That way you’ll know when I’m coming over.”

He chuckled, taking the hint. She let him go, with one final pat and a squeeze that was a little tighter than she usually indulged him with.

“And besides,” Kaede said, “I’ve been thinking about auditing a couple classes at the academy, if they’ll bend the rules for an active hero. I hear they have some pretty good teachers, and there’s still a lot I need to learn about my powers.”

Her dad’s smile was, though Kaede wouldn’t admit it, one of her favorite things in the world.

They both turned at the sound of footsteps on the stairs: Barnaby, who was fortunately fully clothed and did _not_ look like he’d spent the last several hours in bed.

Kaede glanced at her dad, whose expression had softened into something she hoped she’d find for herself one day. Not for a while—she was serious about needing to focus on herself and her responsibilities first—but being surrounded by this level of love every day hadn’t been an entirely negative experience. It’d taught her a lot about what she wanted from a relationship and a partner.

She looked back at Barnaby, able to, for a few seconds, almost see him through her dad’s eyes. She didn’t realize her own were glowing blue.

There was something angelic about Barnaby, framed by the last rays of the fading sunlight: pale skin, delicate features and soft blond curls, with gold glinting at his throat and on the wide band around his finger. He was smiling, too, more quietly than her dad, but with the same affection: so intensely, beautifully sappy it made Kaede’s teeth ache.

“Kotetsu,” Barnaby said, crossing the room to greet him, with a gentle brush of elegant fingertips at his jawline and a kiss on the temple, as though they’d been apart for days. “I was getting some work done; I didn’t hear you wake up.”

“Kaede finished the dishwasher,” her dad announced, bursting with pride that she didn’t mind so much anymore, and Barnaby’s eyebrows lifted in surprise—mixed, she thought, with a little bit of mirrored admiration.

“I’m sorry,” Barnaby said, turning to her, his hand still lingering on her dad’s shoulder, like he couldn’t quite bear to stop touching him. Her dad had set his hand over Barnaby’s, anchoring himself and looking far less distraught now. “I lost track of the time. I meant to have everything cleared away before you got home.”

 _Home_ , she thought, with only a split second of regret. The excitement that’d flooded her after her phone call with Karina was still too strong; she couldn’t wait to move out.

***

“Seriously, Dad,” Kaede said, trying to leave the flat before her dad managed to hug her a tenth time. He and Barnaby, with some occasional muscle from Antonio, had been helping her move all week; her furniture, including her bed and dresser and some new items that’d required assembly, was all set up, and she only had one more box left to clear out. Her dad had hovered around her empty bedroom as she’d finished packing, asking her repeatedly if she was _sure_ she didn’t need him to carry anything, or to drive her to Karina’s.

“It’s _my_ place now, not just Karina’s,” she reminded him. “And no, I’m pretty sure I can handle this one on my own.”

The truth was, there was barely anything in the box; she’d used it as an excuse to say goodbye to her dad one last time, on her terms. She’d chosen a Sunday, when Barnaby was out for most of the morning, although she was beginning to wonder if that’d been the best idea. She texted Karina a revised time and lingered, rearranging items, adding bubble wrap as unnecessary padding, vacuuming the carpet where her furniture had left heavy imprints, and checking the clock until she was sure her dad would only be alone for an hour, maybe less.

“I love you, Dad, okay?” Kaede said, permitting one more bone-squeezing embrace. “And I’m going to love you a _lot_ more from across town.”

On her way out the door, Kaede added, casually, “I left you something on the coffeetable. I know housewarming presents are usually the other way around but...just read it. When you want to.”

Predictably, her dad was already picking up the slim package, tearing off the brown paper wrapping to reveal a glossy magazine with Kaede’s photo on the cover.

It held a recent, lengthy interview—the most in-depth one Kaede had done yet. The second half was the important part, and although she knew it would take her dad a while to read that far, she still sped up her steps, fairly flying to the elevator before his emotions could catch up to her.

There was a reason Kaede didn’t often tell her father to his face what she thought of him. It invariably resulted in tears, obnoxious hair ruffling, and enthusiastically soggy hugging that was difficult to extricate herself from. It was better this way.

And then...she’d call him later. Or text Barnaby, to make sure it was safe to come back for dinner, because _moving out_ didn’t actually mean Kaede had any intention of leaving her family behind.

Some people were just easier to love from a distance; their relationship had always been that way, and Kaede had trouble explaining to her dad that she didn’t _mind_. She’d loved her childhood, and she loved him, and she had never been as excited about anything in her life as getting her own key to her own place.

Which her dad and Barnaby could visit, but only after she’d been settled in for at least a few weeks.

Kaede paused at the base of the building, looking up at the deceptively calm steel-and-glass exterior. It was strange to think there was such warmth within its walls—that a city this huge and overwhelming could so easily narrow down to two people who meant everything to her.

She texted her dad a simple _I love you_ , then turned off her phone before getting into the car Karina had idling by the curb.

***

**Q: You’ve talked before about what Blue Rose’s mentoring has meant to you, both as a woman and as someone who’s been the unchallenged King of Heroes for three years running, ever since Sky High and Barnaby Brooks, Jr. retired.**

A: Yes, I don’t think I would’ve made it through even the first month of this season without Blue Rose’s support.

**Q: That's a big statement. Can you expand on that?**

A: Being a hero isn’t easy. There’s a lot of work behind the scenes that no one else sees, and of course it’s always heartbreaking when there’s someone we can’t save.

**Q: That collapsed construction site in the Bronze Stage last week, for example.**

A: Yes. Since we were already halfway across the city, stopping a jewelry heist, none of us could get there in time. It gets...hard to remember that we may be heroes, but we’re still only a handful of people. We can’t fix everything.

**Q: So what makes you stick with it? And was there anything specific—or anyone—who inspired you to choose this path to begin with?**

A: My dad. For both questions.

 **Q: Really? Wild Tiger? There’s been a big push in the media to paint you as his successor, our first ever family of heroes, but your record this season was astounding. You finished up only a few points behind Blue Rose. The rumor is that Wild Tiger can’t even access the Hundred Power anymore. Wouldn’t you say that you’re more like—**

A: My dad is my hero. He’s more than the mask and the suit and any meaningless points on a leaderboard. _Wild Tiger_ isn’t the hero. My dad is, and always has been, to me and to everyone he comes across.

**Q: That’s really—**

A: My dad never needed powers to be a hero. He helps people. He inspires them. He makes _them_ want to be heroes, in whatever way they can. He did that when he was on Hero TV, and he’s carrying on that legacy as an instructor at Hero Academy, and he’d still be changing people’s lives for the better even if he was working at the coffee stand in Justice Tower. My dad’s amazing. He’s the coolest person I know.

***

Barnaby found Kotetsu on the balcony, leaning down with his long legs kicked behind him and his arms folded on the torso-level railing.

“I saw the article,” he said. Kotetsu had left the magazine open on the couch, the cover creased and folded back to a full-page photo Kaede must have provided them: a close up of her face and Kotetsu’s, both grinning widely, both wearing their hero masks.

Kotetsu straightened up but didn’t turn immediately, first rubbing his eyes and muttering something about the pollen in the air, as though Barnaby would’ve expected him to be out here doing anything _other_ than tearing up over Kaede’s words.

“She’s right, you know,” Barnaby said. It’d taken him a while to see it, not able to comprehend that anyone could be that genuinely selfless. Once he _had_ recognized the kind of man Kotetsu was, it’d been even more difficult for him to understand how the rest of the world couldn’t see it, too.

Kotetsu never seemed to mind. For him, it hadn’t been about the acclaim or how many kids dressed up like Wild Tiger for the Justice Day Festival. So Barnaby had let it go and simply did everything in his power to show how much _he_ valued Kotetsu.

“She’s so much like Tomoe,” Kotetsu said finally. His eyes were wet, Barnaby saw briefly before Kotetsu wrapped all his limbs around him in a tight embrace, his face buried against Barnaby’s shoulder.

He should’ve taken his leather jacket off first, Barnaby thought with a sigh, but he pressed his lips to the top of Kotetsu’s head and pretended neither of them could feel Kotetsu’s shoulders shaking.

Kaede had merely said what anyone who knew and, inevitably, loved Kotetsu thought every day. Kotetsu never seemed to be able to fully comprehend his own importance. Maybe if he heard it enough, Barnaby thought, he might finally start to believe it.

For now, he let Kotetsu sit with his daughter’s words, soaking in the knowledge that she loved him as fiercely and protectively as both Kaburagis deserved. Barnaby closed his eyes, breathing in the familiar, comforting scent of Kotetsu’s shampoo and light cologne, and held him until Kotetsu stepped back with a wobbly smile.

Barnaby traced the pad of his thumb under Kotetsu’s eye, gently brushing away a lingering tear, and wondered how he’d made it here: how he’d ever managed to earn the love, the lifetime partnership, of a man like this.

“Let’s go inside, Kotetsu,” Barnaby said. “The dishwasher overflowed; you used the wrong soap again.”

“I didn’t!” Kotetsu protested immediately, then bit his lip and admitted, “I might’ve been distracted after...I thought it’d be nice if I did some cleaning.”

Barnaby had seen the evidence: the vacuum lines in the carpet, the shoes neatly arranged on the rack by the door instead of tossed haphazardly across the floor, and a kitchen covered in suds.

“Did I break it this time?” Kotetsu asked, his handsome face filling with chagrin that only lasted a few seconds before he suggested, hopefully, “Maybe Kaede will come back to fix it.”

Barnaby kissed Kotetsu on the temple, where his coal-black hair had started to shade the tiniest bit to grey. He opened the sliding glass door and guided his husband inside their home, one arm still wrapped around his waist, Kotetsu leaning comfortably into him—a perfect fit. “I think we can take care of it together, old man.”

**Author's Note:**

> Kaede's hero name and the line "...but he's so OLD" are courtesy of [mikkimouse](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikkimouse/pseuds/mikkimouse/works?fandom_id=243732), who loves Kotetsu, really. Go read her fics.
> 
> Re: the retirements: I think the reasons are mostly self-evident, but I did want to mention that Keith is married to a lovely lady now with probably five dogs and at least one kid on the way. He's very happy. He wanted to step down from the public life and be a hero to his own family (and to John, who's getting older and needs someone to take him out for lots of long, slow walks).
> 
> This is not the first Tiger & Bunny fic I intended to write, but I'm trying to just go with what's inspiring me at the moment rather than sitting around planning too much, so...here you go! Have a lil random burst of fluff and family life. I was originally going to say "hopefully the next one will be more substantial," but then this one crossed 12k so...no promises on that count.


End file.
